This invention relates generally to a shrink package for fresh meat parts, and more specifically to a chilled beef packaging film especially suitable for use in shrink packaging of bony cut meat.
Heretofore, fresh meat has been transported to butcher shops mostly in the form of whole pieces. However, it has become the usual practice to cut it into parts at a slaughterhouse and to deliver the cut meat to butcher shops in shrink packages wrapping the cut meat parts in an oxygen-impermeable, thermally shrinkable film and chilled to a temperature of about zero degree centigrade.
When shrink packaging bony meat parts with currently available chilled beef packaging films, troubles are often encountered because the packaging film is liable to be pierced and ruptured by sharp-point bones in the stage of thermal shrinkage. In order to avoid this trouble, the so called "bone guard" which is impregnated with paraffin or the like is covered on an exposed bone portion of a cut meat to be shrink packaged. However, it is still unsatisfactory and cannot completely prevent the rupturing of the film in the shrinking stage. In addition, the use of "bone guards" for covering the bone portions is reflected by a substantial increase in packaging cost.